Characterizing the variability and meteorological drivers of wind power and solar power generation over Africa

Bloomfield, Hannah; Wainwright, Caroline M.; Mitchell, N.

doi:10.1002/met.2093

Cited by 10 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 59 publications

(110 reference statements)

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“…On average, the wind potential is considerable, with CF increasing northwards, reaching 0.40-0.50 over most of the case area. This observation that is supported by the findings of a study of four sites within the study area by [59,60], demonstrates that they are quite feasible for exploitation. Solar energy potential is lower and more concentrated towards the north, with significant region exhibiting CF of 0.15 or higher.…”

Section: Wind and Solar Time Seriessupporting

confidence: 74%

“…Figure 18 presents a weighted average of the capacity factors for both wind and solar PV in Kenya, showcasing the remarkable synergy between these two renewable energy sources. This shows that a higher proportion of wind energy in the power mix yields better feasibility [59]. As can be noted, Kenya has abundant solar and wind resources, with fairly strong complementarity.…”

Section: Temporo-spatial Congruity Between Wind/solar and Hydropower ...mentioning

confidence: 76%

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Power-System Flexibility: A Necessary Complement to Variable Renewable Energy Optimal Capacity Configuration

Juma,

Munda,

Kabiri

2023

Energies

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Comprehending the spatiotemporal complementarity of variable renewable energy (VRE) sources and their supplemental ability to meet electricity demand is a promising move towards broadening their share in the power supply mix without sacrificing either supply security or overall cost efficiency of power system operation. Increasing VRE share into the energy mix has to be followed with measures to manage technical challenges associated with grid operations. Most sub-Saharan countries can be considered ‘greenfield’ due to their relatively low power generation baseline and are more likely to be advantaged in planning their future grids around the idea of integrating high VRE sources into the grid from the outset. An essential measure for achieving this objective entails exploring the possibility of integrating renewable hybrid power plants into the existing hydropower grid, leveraging on existing synergies and benefiting from the use of existing infrastructure and grid connection points. This study evaluates the potential for hybridizing existing hydropower-dominated networks to accommodate solar- and wind-energy sources. The existing synergy is quantified using correlation and energy indicators by evaluating complementarity at daily, monthly and annual intervals. The proposed metric serves as a tool to improve planning on increasing the VRE fraction into the existing systems with the aim to achieve optimal power mixes. In comparison to cases in which the same kind of resource is over-planted while expanding installed capacity, the results demonstrate that wind and solar resources hold a positive degree of complementarity, allowing a greater share of VRE sources into the grid. The study shows that Kenya bears favorable climatic conditions that allow hybrid power plant concepts to be widely explored and scaled up on a large and efficient scale. The results can be applicable in other regions and represent an important contribution to promoting the integration of VRE sources into sub-Saharan power grids.

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Section: Wind and Solar Time Seriessupporting

confidence: 74%

Section: Temporo-spatial Congruity Between Wind/solar and Hydropower ...mentioning

confidence: 76%

Power-System Flexibility: A Necessary Complement to Variable Renewable Energy Optimal Capacity Configuration

Juma,

Munda,

Kabiri

2023

Energies

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“…When setting up the model to represent the existing wind farm fleet, we note that wind production (Figure 5a) has a strong seasonality, ranging from an average of about 5 GW during the winter and premonsoon to about 12 GW during the monsoon. There is very large day-to-day variability in wind production, much more so than for solar or hydropower, but this is consistent with renewable production in other countries (Bloomfield, Brayshaw, et al, 2022;Bloomfield, Wainwright, et al, 2022;. This means that, for example, during the 2021 monsoon, mean daily output for the whole of India ranged from 3.1 GW (22 August) to 22.5 GW (27 July).…”

Section: Windsupporting

confidence: 73%

“…These synthetic renewable datasets are generally validated on historical observations (e.g., from the ENTSO‐e Transparency Platform for Europe, https://transparency.entsoe.eu/). However, such observations are not always available for developing regions in an easily accessible format (or the renewable generation may not be built yet), so theoretical generation profiles are often calculated instead (Bloomfield, Wainwright, et al, 2022; Dunning et al, 2015).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Quantifying renewable energy potential and realized capacity in India: Opportunities and challenges

Hunt,

Bloomfield

2024

Meteorological Applications

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As both the population and economic output of India continue to grow, so does its demand for electricity. Coupled with an increasing determination to transition to net zero, India has responded to this rising demand by rapidly expanding its installed renewable capacity: an increase of 60% in the last 5 years has been driven largely by a quintupling of installed solar capacity. In this study, we use broad variety of data sources to quantify potential and realized capacity over India from 1979 to 2022. For potential capacity, we identify spatiotemporal patterns in solar, wind, hydro and wave power. We show that solar capacity factor is relatively homogeneous across India, except over the western Himalaya, and is highest during the pre‐monsoon. Wind capacity factor is highest during the summer monsoon, and has high values off the southern coast, along the Western Ghats, and in Gujarat. We argue that wave power could be a useful source of renewable energy for the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, which are not connected to the main Indian power grid. Using gridded estimates of existing installed capacity combined with our historical capacity factor dataset, we create a simple but effective renewable production model. We use this model to identify weaknesses in the existing grid—particularly a lack of complementarity between wind and solar production in north India, and vulnerability to high‐deficit generation in the winter. We discuss potential avenues for future renewable investment to counter existing seasonality problems, principally offshore wind and high‐altitude solar.

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“…Previous studies have focused on general meteorological drivers for energy droughts [14,1,15,16,17], or specifically on the reliability of complementary renewable systems [18,19,20]. Other studies have looked at energy droughts and the complementarity of wind and solar in Europe [21,7,22,23,10,2,24,25,1,26,11], Latin America [27,8] and Africa [28]. Relatively few studies have focused on North America.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Standardized Benchmark of Historical Compound Wind and Solar Energy Droughts Across the Continental United States

Bracken¹,

Voisin²,

Burleyson³

et al. 2023

Preprint

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As we move towards a decarbonized grid, reliance on weather-dependent energy increases as does exposure to prolonged natural resource shortages known as energy droughts. Compound energy droughts occur when two or more predominant renewable energy sources simultaneously are in drought conditions. In this study we present a methodology and dataset for examining compound wind and solar energy droughts as well as the first standardized benchmark of energy droughts across the Continental United States (CONUS) for a 2020 infrastructure. Using a recently developed dataset of simulated hourly plant level generation which includes thousands of wind and solar plants, we examine the frequency, duration, magnitude, and seasonality of energy droughts at a variety of temporal and spatial scales. Results are presented for 15 Balancing Authorities (BAs), regions of the U.S.\ power grid where wind and solar are must-take resources by the power grid and must be balanced. Compound wind and solar droughts are shown to have distinct spatial and temporal patterns across the CONUS. BA-level load is also included in the drought analysis to quantify events where high load is coincident with wind and solar droughts. We find that energy drought characteristics are regional and the longest droughts can last from 16 to 37 continuous hours, and up to 6 days. The longest hourly energy droughts occur in Texas while the longest daily droughts occur in California. Compound energy drought events that include load are more severe on average compared to events that involve only wind and solar. In addition, we find that compound high load events occur more often during compound wind and solar droughts that would be expected due to chance. The insights obtained from these findings and the summarized characteristics of energy drought provide valuable guidance on grid planning and storage sizing at the regional scale.

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Characterizing the variability and meteorological drivers of wind power and solar power generation over Africa

Cited by 10 publications

References 59 publications

Power-System Flexibility: A Necessary Complement to Variable Renewable Energy Optimal Capacity Configuration

Power-System Flexibility: A Necessary Complement to Variable Renewable Energy Optimal Capacity Configuration

Quantifying renewable energy potential and realized capacity in India: Opportunities and challenges

Standardized Benchmark of Historical Compound Wind and Solar Energy Droughts Across the Continental United States

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